


Murdercat

by Peachmangoflavored



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, I just really love x6 so here I go, serious at first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2018-12-18 10:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11872290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachmangoflavored/pseuds/Peachmangoflavored
Summary: Cats tend to bring their kills to the people they love, and X6 finds out he isn't that different from a cat after all. A few anonymous kills later, and he accidentally becomes a honorary railroad agent.





	1. He Protec

X6-88 rarely ever saw other coursers out in the commonwealth. He knew they were out there, of course, running missions for the Institute just as he was, but his path never crossed with theirs. That's why he was so surprised to see another black uniform skirting the edge of Sanctuary. 

It was early in the morning, the start of a crisp spring day that promised rain later on. The bright reds and oranges of the sunrise had faded away into a sickly blue sky, and the dew on the vegetation was just enough to to give X6 an uncomfortable chill and secure his uniform a little tighter. He was watching the settlers as they started their average commonwealth day when he noticed the shadowy figure around the outskirts of the settlement. Rather than investigate and give away his knowledge of the situation to the outsider, he decided to merely observe.

The figure seemed bored watching the settlement, just as X6 had felt when he first arrived, before he had begun to understand and almost appreciate the intricacies of settlement life. Always buzzing with activity, there was always something to do and someone to help, which took X6 quite some time to get used to. He watched the interloper out of the corner of his eye until the figure went rigid and settled down in their position, like a hunting cat preparing to strike. X6's head whipped around, trying to figure out what the figure was watching, and when he followed the gaze his stomach dropped.

Curie.

The figure was hunting Curie.

She had just left her little home, running by Codsworth's kitchen and grabbing a hunk of fresh bread before heading toward Sanctuary's clinic and makeshift research center. She was intently studying some crinkled papers in her hands, chewing her breakfast quickly and squinting her eyes in concentration. X6 had grown fond of her over the past year, and though he couldn't call her a friend, he trusted her medical expertise and could appreciate having her around. When he turned his concentration back to the interloper and saw that their face had followed her across the settlement, his courser training seemed to kick in. 

X6 made a beeline for the outskirts of town in the opposite direction, thinking of circling the perimeter and sneaking up behind whoever had their eyes trained on Curie. The sea of settlers all but parted for him as he passed, which he barely noticed; normally they would ignore him, but his fists were clenched and his jaw was set in an intense glare, dredging up any old fears of him they used to hold. He only glanced back at the figure to assure they hadn't noticed his abrupt change in position, and, satisfied that they hadn't, he slipped into the underbrush and began to slink around the perimeter. 

A few agonizingly slowed minutes passed as X6 inched closer to the figure. It had been nearly two weeks since he last picked up his gun for anything bigger than a molerat and he was itching for some sort of action. As he got closer and closer to his unaware target, who was watching their own target intently, their black uniform and blocky laser rifle came into view, and it became apparent to him that he was hunting one of his own kind. His mind raced as took another step closer, struggling to think of why another courser was hunting Curie, and, distracted, his boot made the slightest sound of crunching a leaf, causing the other courser to whip around and pull her weapon on him. He suddenly remembered what he had almost forgotten; Curie's a synth too.

The other courser paused, raising an eyebrow in confusion and lowering her weapon. She seemed at a loss for words, opening and closing her mouth for a moment before holstering her weapon altogether. 

"X6-88, the director's mother is not currently within the surrounding area. Are you not supposed to be watching her?" She asked, seeming more confused than smug with her question. X6 answered her question with one of his own.

"Z3-14, what is your mission here?" 

"Find and return with the escaped unit G5-19." She gestured to Curie's last whereabouts, suddenly distracted where she had disappeared to. "She needs to be returned to be wiped and reprogrammed for Institute service." She continued.

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that." X6 responded without even thinking about it. Both he and the courser beside him stiffened in response to his words. 

"And why not?" She said without hostility. She seemed more confused than anything else. 

"Cur-, unit G5-19," he quickly corrected himself, and the courser's eyes narrowed in suspicion for the first time. "This unit is the primary doctor for the Director's mother, as well as many of her friends. She cannot be removed from her position."

"The Director's mother should come back to the Institute for a real doctor to tend to her wounds. G5-19 is not equipped with proper medical knowledge to take care of such an important asset to the Institute." The other courser said. X6 didn't want to argue with her, he just wanted her gone. He couldn't fight the sinking feeling in his gut that this interaction would be reported to Justin Ayo in the SRB, along with a request that he be wiped and returned to regular synth work.

"I will be returning with unit G5-19, whether you think I should or not." Z3-14 told him, her voice suddenly becoming sharp. She turned her back on X6 and, seeing Curie again, tensed up to spring into action.

Time seemed to slow for X6. She was going to attack Curie, in the middle of the day, surrounded by settlers? He knew that would cause casualties. He barely registered what he was doing as he reached out and placed both his hands on both sides of her head. She quickly tried to turn around, saying something that was cut off by the neat twist of his wrists, and the neat snap of her neck. She dropped to the ground with a heavy thud as X6 removed his hands, brushing off any imagined grime on his uniform. The magnitude of what he had done suddenly hit him, and he recoiled violently at his realization. 

He just killed another courser.

To save the lives of common settlers.

As he looked down at the warm corpse, an uncomfortable thought crossed his mind.

He killed another courser to protect Curie.

X6, still reeling with the realization of what he did, tried to reason with himself that it was to protect the settlers, or to keep the General from becoming upset with the Institute, or even to protect his own reputation as a courser within the SRB. But he couldn't fight the feeling that he had done purely to protect a fellow synth. Since when had coursers stopped being fellow synths, and since when had Curie become so important?

He sat down in the brush for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He listened carefully to the hubbub of settlement life across the shallow creek, and he could just barely make out the sound of Codsworth saying it was last call for breakfast, of Cait loudly complaining that the general hadn't taken her out in a long time, and of Curie telling one of the few children in Sanctuary that she does surgery on people, not teddy bears, but Maccready will be back soon and is "quite good at sewing up teddy bear wounds". He felt the strangest wave of possessiveness wash over him. They were his people, and he had to protect them.

His thoughts returned to the courser corpse beside him, and he pondered how to dispose of it. Suddenly, his mind turned to the General and her weird hobby of collecting the synth components of synths she killed. She was proud of the one courser chip she had; by only was it her access to the Institute, but proof that she was powerful enough to stand up the best this world could throw at her. He had the sudden urge to bring her this courser's synth component as well, though he had nothing to prove.

X6 pulled out a pocket knife and began the grisly work of cutting the synth component out of the base of Z3-14's neck, removing her uniform to ensure it didn't get stained with blood. When the deed was done, and he rinsed off the tiny chunk of plastic and wires in the burbling creek, he quickly folded the discarded courser uniform and tucked it under his arm, calmly walking through Sanctuary over to his room, where he gently placed it in the bureau that held his spare outfits. He crossed over to the General's house, the next one over from his, and slipped inside, placing the synth component in the box with the four others she had collected. He half hoped that she wouldn't notice her collection had grown.

He stopped by the shed to grab a shovel and buried the body without a second thought. When he returned, Sturges called him over for help with his latest project, fixing up an old water heater so that the settlers could take hot showers instead of bathing in tepid water. X6 found himself settling back into everyday life and believed his morning to be a one-time situation.


	2. He Attac

X6 had no idea how wrong he was.

About a week later, he had been assigned to perimeter watch with Cait for the evening. The sun had finally slipped under the horizon and the lights of Sanctuary flickered on behind the pair as they walked. The job they were assigned was barely useful, considering the turrets that littered the outskirts of the town and the killer robots that walked among the settlers, but some old fashioned people couldn't feel at ease unless a pair of organic eyes was watching the horizon. 

X6 didn't mind taking the job several nights a week, as it was peaceful and gave him an excuse to avoid other settlers by sleeping through the day. What he did mind, however, was taking the job with Cait. She was alright to spend small amounts of time with, and the two could often sit in comfortable silence together if Cait was in the right mood. But at night, she grew bored and restless, and unfortunately he was stuck with her.

"Do you genuinely believe it's a good idea to be drinking when you're on perimeter duty? I know that you're smarter than that, Cait." Cait shot him a playful glare, switching her small bottle of whiskey to the hand on X6's side.

"As if I even need to be out here! They don't need us to watch their backs, and even if they did you're more than enough. I swear, Kayla makes me come out here just to keep you company. Probably thinks I'll help you build some social skills or some shite like that." She gave a weak chuckle and gestured to the bottle like she was going to talk about it but stopped. 

"Oh, speaking of the devil." She grinned, finally noticing that the General, Kayla, had been walking their way for some time. Nick Valentine was by her side, glowing eyes clearly visible in the darkness. The two were talking about something, the General waving her hands about and Nick nodding as they walked. They were unaware, or just didn't care, that they had come into X6's earshot as they came closer.

"-and I know for a fact I didn't put it there! I only have four, and just one of those specifically! Someone put it there!" The General said, slightly agitated.

"Kid, I think Curie needs to check out your head. You cleared out Cambridge crater for those settlers, right? Maybe the rads are making you confused." He returned. "Besides, who could even kill a courser? Only you and Danse have done it, and I'm pretty sure Danse hasn't been going out hunting his potential hunters, if you get what I'm saying." 

"It's like someone just killed it and brought me the corpse... Like a cat!" She said.

"Sure, a big murderous cat. Let's go with that conclusion." He replied. He chuckled and started saying something in an exasperated tone, but by then they went out of earshot, long after passing by X6 and Cait. X6 was lost in thought, thinking over how the General had noticed the extra chip but didn't put two and two together. Cait suddenly stopped next, to him, jolting him out of his thoughts.

"Do you genuinely think it's a good idea to be checking out the General's arse when you're on perimeter duty? I didn't even think that was programmed into you." She mocked him playfully.

"I was not-"

"Then why else would turn your head around when they walked by, hmm?" She teased. X6 rolled his eyes and went back to tuning her out and focusing on the task at hand, trying to leave thoughts of the courser chip behind.

 

\---------------

 

Tracking down a group of rust devils should not be difficult, by any means. County Crossing had asked the Minutemen to send someone over to chase the robot-toting raiders away, and with the General three days deep into the glowing sea with Danse, the job somehow fell to X6. At first he was thrilled to actually be doing something, especially killing something, but after four hours of chasing he was just frustrated. They never stopped moving, giving such tiny windows for him to attack. It was almost as if the rust devils themselves were chasing something too.

As it turns out, they were.

X6 slipped between two buildings and just barely saw the raiders and robots chase a pair of people into a crumbling church. He skirted the edges of church carefully before finding a few good holds in the rotting wood and scaling it to the top of the crumbling roof. He was making his way over to a hole to peer in when he heard a distinctive knocking on the wood floor below him.

One-two-three, one-two, one-two-three-four-five.

An old Railroad sos signal.

X6 looked in through a hole in the roof and watched as the rust devils closed in on the pair below him. He realized that only one of them had armor and some form of weapon, and the other was cowering behind an old pew. An agent and a running synth. No one was coming to help them, though X6 saw the agent kept glancing at the front corner of the building. This was most likely a safe house, and this agent unwittingly led both raiders and a courser there in desperation.

'No wonder no one would rescue them.' He thought. 'Blowing their cover isn't worth two lives.'

Suddenly, the rotting wood underneath X6 creaked, and before he could react a portion of the roof collapsed underneath him. He hit the floor with a solid thud and drew his weapon before anyone else realized what had happened. Had he not been a courser, and had he not been wearing specially armored and padded clothes, that fall would have been bone breaking. Instead, the wind was simply knocked out of him, and he had already taken down an eyebot before he even got up.

The remaining rust devils and robots charged him, leaving the railroad agent to duck behind a pew with the runner. A modified assaultron ran straight for X6, laser charged and preparing to fire. A good shot to the hip from X6's new plasma pistol knocked it's legs out from underneath it, and X6 dived down to grab the head and wrench it around toward his attackers. The gut-wrenching sound of the assaultron laser fired off, far too close to X6's ears, but when the red light faded there was a hole in the chest of a rust devil and another in the protectron behind them. One of the remaining rust Devils froze in place, an easy target for X6, and his plasma pistol made quick work of them. The last man turned to flee and met with the same fate, X6 shooting him dead as he made a desperate crawl toward the rotting church door. 

A few seconds of peace passed, the only noise being X6's breathing as he came down from the adrenaline high. He couldn't remember the last time he had lost control of a situation like that, and he loved it. It had been a long time since panic controlled him like it did when the roof collapsed under his feet, and he was pleased to see that he still worked quite well under pressure. The sudden crash of the smoking protectron finally tipping over brought the railroad agent out from behind the pew, scanning the situation nervously.

"Holy shit, that was a close one!" The man said. X6 wanted to ask him why he was approaching, why he wasn't freaking out, don't you see the unifor- 

'I'm not wearing my courser uniform.' X6 suddenly remembered. He had been so used to wearing it even in settlements, so used to clinging to the heavy coat to remind others that he's dangerous, to stay away. When he went to help the settlement, Preston had suggested he wear different clothes, some of the General's armored civilian clothes, in order to not frighten the hassled settlers. Now, it seemed the bolstered leather jacket and jeans were reassuring to this man as well.

"Thank you so much, man. I was so scared G4 and I here weren't gonna make it. What's your name, I gotta tell Des to give you a pat on the back or something." The agent said, nervousness melting away into friendly gratitude. X6 paused, uncomfortable. Des? Were they a leader in the railroad? And his name? He didn't want to give this guy Alex, but he wasn't sure what else to do. Luckily for him, the chatty agent was more than happy to keep talking. 

"Well, I mean, I'm not asking for your real name, of course!" He laughed. "You never know if the institute is watching." X6 almost smiled at that. This poor guy had no idea.

"No, but seriously, what's your codename, I need to thank you properly."

X6 didn't know why the hell he responded the way he did, but he said the first thing that came to his mind.

"Murdercat." The man blinked.

"What-?" He tried to say, but X6 was already gone, unable to deal with the social situation. 

 

Agent Talker scratched his head, deciding it would just be better to leave the other agent be. He helped G4-27 out from behind the pew and led them around the corner, giving one last look at the mess of blood and metal behind him before entering the crypts. Once they reached Railroad HQ, they found nearly everyone there facing the door, guns at the ready.

"Woah, woah, relax guys. Situation's taken care of. No thanks to you." Talker said, hands out as if to calm them. Most of the people relaxed and another agent ushered the synth away.

"It didn't sound like everything was under control, Talker." Carrington said from his corner. Desdemona elaborated on what he meant.

"We all heard the fight upstairs, but he couldn't risk giving away our position, you know that." She sighed and changed her tone. "Was that an assaultron? Are you hurt?"

"No, no I'm fine. So is G4. It's a good thing our help came crashing in!" Desdemona's eyebrows quirked.

"Help? Someone helped you?"

"Yeah, that heavy... Murdercat? I haven't seen him before, so I guess he's new. Literally dropped in and saved our asses! Kudos to you for recruiting him, he's good." Desdemona was confused, but let her face remain neutral.

"I'll be sure to tell him when he comes around." She said carefully. She dismissed Talker to Ticonderoga and quickly called a small meeting in PAM's room. She, PAM, Carrington, Glory, Tinker Tom, and Deacon huddled in the small room to discuss.

"Alright," she started, "who the hell is murdercat?"

"Don't ask me, how the hell would I know?" Replied Carrington. A short chorus of "I don't know"'s echoed across the group.

"Statistically speaking, it is more likely that Deacon or Fixer recruited a helper and didn't inform the rest of us than any other possible situation." PAM spoke up, and all eyes went to Deacon. 

"What, don't tell me you guys forgot murdercat? What, soon you'll be forgetting loverdog, or fighterturtle, or-"

"That's enough Deacon." Said Desdemona. "Are you sure he's not one of Fixer's?" Deacon paused for a second, wracking his brain for some sort of clue.

"Nah man. I got nothing. If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty damn sure Fixer wouldn't just make someone an agent and not even tell us."

"What if it's a courser?" Tinker Tom, suddenly chimed in, drawing out a loud "what?!" from Glory.

"It could be a courser trying to gain our trust to get into HQ! Think about it; they saw an agent in trouble, followed them until they were out of places to run, and then swoops in, rescues them, and gives some bogus code name? That just screams institute plan!"

"Tom, I seriously doubt-" Glory started, but Desdemona interrupted her. 

"More likely than not, some Good Samaritan saw someone in trouble and came to the rescue, then Talker blew his own cover and they decided not to get involved and left." She stated. "But still, Tom does have a point. We need to be more careful around strange saviors the future." The group left it at that, and believed this afternoon to be a one time situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is both longer and less funny than I planned, so now there's gonna be three chapters. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. But most important, he (don't) bring synth bac

They had no idea how wrong they were. 

No one had a clue who agent Murdercat was, but he seemed to be everywhere at once. First it was Talker and the rust devils. Within a few weeks it was another agent who needed saving from a group of gunners, then a handful of tourists with various groups of raiders, and then High Rise swore he had a benevolent shadow when he escorted runners to their destinations. When asked who he was, the figure would reply with his "codename" Murdercat and flee the scene, and eventually the railroad just came to accept him as their own. Even Desdemona figured that they shouldn't question him and just be grateful to have another ally in the commonwealth. Tinker Tom, however, never stopped believing in his theory, and eventually Glory started wondering if he was right.

Glory's next mission was simple; there had been a spike of institute activity near the Mercer safe house, and she was sent to clear out the gen two's that occupied the surrounding area. After a long walk, she finally found the group of synths at the fringes of a small town up north from the safe house. Edging along the side of a super mutant infested hospital, Glory readied her minigun to mow down the skeletal synths when she suddenly became very aware of a pair of eyes on her back.

A sudden laser blast caught her in the right shoulder and the shock of it caused dropped her heavy weapon directly on her right foot. The sickening crunch of her foot underneath the metal caused her to nearly black out, and the courser behind her merely tut-tutted as he came around to her front. 

"And what might you be doing here, hmm?" He asked coldly, examining her as she focused on rolling the weapon off her mangled foot. Her vision swam and she raised her head to snarl at him, only to come face to face with the barrel of his laser rifle. 

"You son of a bi-" she said, but was cut off by a green blast from behind a nearby building. The courser was hit in the arm and dropped his weapon, hissing in pain and clutching his injured arm. Taking the chance, Glory pulled her arm back and landed a solid punch on the courser's jaw before grabbing his weapon and backing up. The courser took a plasma blast to the side, then another, and finally one to the head as he desperately tried to find his attacker. Glory began firing as well, an onslaught of blue and green blasts slowing the moving courser considerably until a man stepped out from a little garage. The courser called out in surprise, seemingly recognizing the man, but before he could say anymore the figure in a leather jacket fired directly into the courser's face, finishing him.

"You wouldn't happen to be Murdercat, would you?" Glory called out, instantly regretting it when she heard heavy footsteps from the front of the hospital. She suddenly remembered the nearby super mutants and cursed her bad luck. 

"Make yourself small!" The man across the street yelled, opening fire on the mutants as they came into view. Glory, realized her crushed foot left her with no better options, pressed herself to the side of the building and slide down it into a huddled position. She hated not being able to help, but would rather live to fight another day than draw attention to herself when she couldn't escape. And besides, watching Murdercat work was like watching poetry in motion. 

The man ducked and dodged with perfect efficiency, reloading his weapon effortlessly as he downed mutant after mutant. Bullets seemed to bounce off his clothes when he was hit, but they had no effect on him as mowed through them. The synths followed in, investigating the fighting, and Murdercat seemed unfazed by the incoming synths, focusing in on the mutants instead. Glory wanted to shout out for him to watch his back, but didn't have to. The synths stood beside the man and fought the mutants instead of him. When the last of the bellowing super mutants was nothing but a steaming pile of gore, Murdercat finished off the gen two synths as well. 

Glory's mind seemed to be running a mile a minute. Did the synths not even notice him? Did the consider him an ally in fighting the mutants? Did they even fight back when he attacked them? Despite him being her savior, she felt vaguely threatened when he strode over to her to asses the damage. He handed her two stimpacks and walked away without a word, prompting Glory to speak.

"What? Not even gonna give me an answer after you blew all that money on me? She said. Murdercat turned to look at her, as if confused.

"Come on, I know plasma ammo isn't cheap." She said, trying to coax him in further. Instead, he only nodded at her. 

"Yes, I am Murdercat. And you're welcome, by the way." Glory was trying to think of what else to say when he did something that froze her in her tracks.

She could only watch in horror as Murdercat pulled out a small knife from his jacket pocket and tore open the back of the courser's neck, a spurt of frothy blood flowing from the cut. He dug in deep until he recovered a small chunk of plastic. 'A synth component,' she thought in disgust and horror, feeling phantom pain in the back of her neck where she knew her own synth component lies. He wrapped the chunk in a small piece of cloth and fled the scene in nearly the blink of an eye. Just like that, Murdercat had struck again and vanished without a trace. 

Glory felt unusually sick as she looked at the corpse of the courser, neck still bubbling with blood. She had seen defiled corpses before of course, but this felt so personal to synths, and to her. She injected the two stimpacks she was given into her ankle as fast as she could and hobbled to the Mercer safe house before she had even finished healing. 

'Whatever,' she tried to convince herself. 'Mission accomplished, asses kicked. Even if I wasn't the boot...' 

 

When she finally returned back to HQ a few days later and told her story, Desdemona decided they needed a small celebration to keep moral up. Within minutes everyone who could drink had cracked open a beer to try to relax and celebrate Glory living to fight another day. Glory still felt unnerved, but before she could cross over to Tinker Tom to tell him exactly what happened, Fixer seemed to have appeared out of thin air, Deacon at her side.

Glory had to hand it to her; for being ridiculously tall, she certainly could disappear and reappear with the best of them.

"Hey Fixer. You missed a real party, so now I guess we're having a little one. You've been gone for months." Glory said. Fixer smiled in return.

"You wouldn't believe how busy I've been. What's the party for?" Fixer said. 

"Fixer." Desdemona interrupted. The whole HQ seemed to go quiet as people turned to watch. 

"We're having this for some unknown savior who's been helping us when we need him most. Do you know someone by the codename Murdercat?"

"No...." Kayla stopped for a moment, thinking. "What does he look like?" All heads turned to Glory then, waiting for the person with the freshest memory to speak.

"He's tall. And dark. Short black hair, leather jacket." A look of excitement dawned on Fixer's face.

"Did he have snazzy sunglasses and perfect cheekbones?" Glory was almost thrown for a loop.

"Uh, he had sunglasses I guess. I payed more attention to the way he tore through those super mutants than his face though." Fixer turned to Deacon, face now lit up with joy. She excitedly whispered something about courser chips, grinning ear to ear.

"Yeahhhh..." said Deacon. "I know what you're talking about." She playfully punched him in the shoulder, causing him to wince and rub the area. She didn't notice and grinned up at Desdemona.

"I keep a collection of synth components. I only had the one courser chip from when I got into the Institute, but now I have three. Of course Alex is the only one who could collect more!" Fixer said, seemingly unaware of the horror of several Railroad members at her first statement. Glory, in particular, felt sick. Thankfully, Carrington broke the silence.

"And how would... Alex? How would he kill coursers? They're nearly impossible to get rid of." 

"Oh! It takes one to kill one I guess." She said. The whole HQ seemed to erupt in gasps and whispers. Carrington's jaw dropped so far he could catch bloatflies, Desdemona visibly recoiled, even Drummer boy's face twisted into one of horror. Tom yelled out "I knew it! I told you guys!" and Glory could only nod numbly in response. 

Deacon crossed over and pressed a handful of caps into Glory's palm, muttering about how he should have known it was Sanctuary's resident courser, and that he'd certainly wager less caps next time.

 

"Hey Alex, can I talk to you for a second?" Kayla said, having gone home to where she was the General, not Fixer. It was late at night and X6 was watching the perimeter again, this time alone. Kayla fell into place beside him walking; with her dark hair and coat, anyone else could have easily passed over her in the night. But X6 wasn't anyone else, and he was glad to see her home. 

"Sure thing, ma'am- Kayla." He corrected himself, eyes not leaving the nearly pitch-black horizon.

"You've been busy lately, Murdercat." She said. X6 tripped on a rock he had passed over a thousand times before, and had to stumble to keep from falling. She didn't give him time to compose himself before continued.

"You're really popular, you know? They're throwing parties in your honor! What's like being a top Railroad agent?" She said, the shit-eating grin on her face barely visible in the moonlight. X6 finally turned to look at her, but didn't say anything. His expression remained unreadable, and her face softened into a kinder smile.

"Hey, I know Im joking around about it, but thanks. For helping out. It means a lot, especially from you." She said, lifting her hand to hover just over his arm. He lifted his shoulder slightly toward her and she took it as permission to to squeeze his arm affectionately. 

"I saved Curie." He finally said. Kayla made a small questioning noise in the back of her throat. 

"Another courser was going to return her to the Institute." He finished. She squeezed his arm a little tighter. He knew that if he were Danse, or Maccready, or even Piper, she would have brought him in for a hug of thanks. She respected his personal space and he always appreciated that.

"Thank you." She said warmly. He nodded back, then acting on some impulse he didn't understand, he placed his other hand over her's on his shoulder. Her face lit up and the unusual affection and she hummed lightly. 

They broke away from each other and walked in silence a little longer, absorbing what had just happened. A few minutes of peace held between them until Kayla had to break it with a sharp bark of laughter.

"So Curie's pretty enough to turn you railroad huh? Wish I was that pretty!" She teased, unable to hold in her laughter.

X6 lightly shoved her into the chilly river and took off sprinting when she came after him, soaking wet and ready for revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I feel like this entire fic is mess, but I had fun and you guys seem to be having fun too! Thank you so much for all the lovely comments, each of them really made my day!


End file.
